Commercial Photography in Los Angeles
Shoots planned around where the images actually run.
Start a projectMost brands don’t have a photography problem. They have a consistency problem. The product grid is shot across three sessions a year apart, so the lighting drifts and the SKUs don’t sit together. The campaign hero looks great in the deck and falls apart the moment it’s cropped for a story or an email. And nobody can find the file when they need it. The shoot was fine; everything around the shoot was the issue.
We treat commercial photography as production, not a creative outing. The plan comes first — a shot list built against the exact placements the images have to live on, so every setup earns its place and every format you need comes out of one shoot day instead of three. On set, real art direction. In post, a consistent grade and retouch levels matched to use. You get master files plus the ready-to-ship crops, named so your team can actually use them.
The difference with Metrix Digital is that we don’t hand over a folder and leave. Because we build and run the channels these images go on, the photography is organized into a library the team actually pulls from, and reshoots get planned around what the channel data showed — not a hunch. AI helps us tag, sort, and version the asset library at scale; the camera, the direction, and the eye for what makes an image sell stay with our people.
Built and run, end to end.
Pre-production and shot planning
Most of the cost and quality of a shoot is decided before anyone picks up a camera. We build the shot list against the actual placements — PDP hero, listing carousel, paid social, email header, the homepage — so every frame has a job. Mood references, prop and styling decisions, casting, location, and a call sheet that the whole crew works from. No 'we'll figure it out on set.'
Product and packshot photography
Clean, consistent product imagery for ecommerce and catalog: white-background packs, in-context lifestyle, detail and texture, scale and packaging. We hold lighting and angle consistent across an entire SKU range so the grid reads as one brand, not twelve separate sessions. Color-managed from capture so what you approve is what the printer and the screen reproduce.
Brand and campaign photography
The hero imagery a campaign is built on — lifestyle, environmental, talent-driven. Art-directed on set with a real director's eye for composition, wardrobe, and moment. We shoot for the layout, not just the frame: room for headlines, safe areas for crops, verticals and horizontals captured in the same setup so one shoot feeds every format you need.
Retouching and color grading
Post is where commercial photography is finished, not rescued. Clipping paths, blemish and dust cleanup, color correction to brand standards, compositing and shadow work where needed. A consistent grade across the set so images sit together. Retouch levels matched to use — light for catalog volume, deep for the campaign hero — so you're not paying hero rates on a 200-SKU run.
Channel-spec deliverables
One shoot, every format the work has to live in. We export crops and sizes per placement — Amazon and Shopify dimensions, Meta and TikTok aspect ratios, email and web — with naming conventions your team can actually find later. Master files plus the ready-to-ship versions, not a folder of 6,000-pixel RAWs someone else has to cut down.
Asset library and reshoots
Because we run the channels too, the photography doesn't end at delivery. Shots get organized into a library tagged by product, campaign, and placement so the team pulling images for a paid test or a PDP refresh can find them. When the data says a hero image is underperforming, we know — and we plan the reshoot around what the numbers showed, not a guess.
Questions, answered.
What types of commercial photography do you shoot?
Product and packshot, brand and lifestyle, campaign hero, and environmental work for mid-market brands. The common thread is commercial use — images built to sell on a PDP, a paid placement, an email, or a homepage, not portfolio art. If you need editorial portraits or event coverage, that's a different brief; we'll tell you straight if it's not our lane.
Where do you shoot — studio or on location?
Both, in and around Los Angeles. Product and packshot work usually runs in a controlled studio for consistency. Brand and campaign work goes wherever the story needs — a location, a set build, or a studio cyc. We scout and lock the location during pre-production so the call sheet is real before the shoot day, not a question mark.
How is pricing structured for a shoot?
By scope, not a flat day rate that hides the real drivers. The big variables are shot count, talent and styling, location, and retouch depth. We scope those up front so you see what you're paying for and can trade off — fewer setups, lighter retouch on the volume shots, a tighter shot list. You approve the plan and the number before we book the crew.
Do you handle usage rights and talent licensing?
Yes. We sort out model releases, talent licensing terms, and image usage rights as part of pre-production, and we tell you what your license actually covers — channels, territories, and duration. No surprise that a campaign image you've been running for a year was licensed for three months. It's in the brief before we cast.
How long until we get the final images?
Selects are typically available within a few days of the shoot so you can approve direction early; final retouched, channel-spec deliverables follow on a timeline we agree to in the scope. Volume product runs and a single deeply-retouched campaign hero move on different clocks, and we'll give you both dates up front rather than one optimistic one.
Can you reshoot or add to a library as our products change?
That's the point of working with an agency that runs the channels, not a one-off vendor. We keep your shoot specs, lighting setups, and grade on file, so a new SKU or a seasonal refresh matches what we shot before instead of looking like a different brand. And when channel data flags an underperforming image, we plan the reshoot around the evidence.